oh brother

It’s not ideal to write out a joke which is meant to be told, but can I possibly meet everyone who reads PaperGirl and personally deliver this joke? I’d like to, sure, but verily, I say unto thee, I cannot.

There is one caveat — and I know with every sentence I’m writing before telling this joke, more people are yelling, “Get on with it, Fons!” — but the caveat remains:

This is a blonde joke.

Before folks arch an eyebrow or puffs up in any sort of (admirably) defensive way, remember: I’ve been blonde for the better part of nine months and I’ve been a proud female for over three decades. I am also a person who regularly does or says daffy-but-hopefully-charming things that I often later regret. Considering all that, the way I see it is that I can tell a blonde joke without reservation. Not everyone is allowed to tell all jokes and that’s not some identity politics thing you need to be wary of, not some “don’t be so sensitive!” thing with which, frankly, I often side. But as a favorite comedian of mine says, “In jokes, you have to ‘punch up.’ You have to make fun of the guy bigger than you; not the guy smaller than you. That’s kind of the code. You get away from that and stuff starts not being so funny.” Anyway, my point is that I can tell this joke and I can’t believe I’ve gone into Mary’s Theory of Jokes but there you have it.

But whether or not you should tell this joke is up to your judgment. Just know that I have found this joke suitable for every social situation in which it has been appropriate to start telling jokes. In my opinion, these situations present themselves with great frequency.

And now, finally: The Blonde In a Library joke:

So this blonde walks into a library. She goes up to the librarian and says, real loud and obnoxious:

“Can I get a cheeseburger and fries?”

The librarian, horrified, whispers to the woman, “Miss! This is a library!”

The blonde goes, “Oh! Sorry!” — and then, in a whisper — “Can I get a cheeseburger and fries?”

It’s really funny! You might have to try it on someone, that I’ll accept. Really get that high and low down for the blonde character, that loud, “Can I get a cheeseburger and fries??” and then drop down real low to a whisper when she corrects herself. And make the librarian very upset.

And it has just occurred to me that I should’ve spent the whole post apologizing to librarians. This is a perfect example of how you cannot, cannot, cannot please everyone and that trying is a blonde’s errand.